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Introduction to Cluttons

Cluttons are an international private limited liability partnership. They are one of the leading firms of chartered surveyors and property consultants. William Clutton originally founded them in 1765 and their first expansion into the Middle East occurred in 1976. They currently employ over 600 people, operating from offices in the UK and Middle East, with associated businesses in Europe and South Africa.

Core values and objectives

Cluttons is an independent business offering a wide range of property services from a broad spread of international locations. Clutton’s main objective is to maximise profits by working together effectively to deliver good services to their clients.

Cluttons’ core values are:

  • Performance, everyone in Cluttons is expected to give their best, with commitment to our business targets, values and expected behaviours.
  • Clients, Cluttons’ service levels to clients must always be of such high quality and delivered with a high amount of insight.
  • People, delivering a collective effort.
  • Risk and reputation, Cluttons protect and promote the Cluttons brand in all that they do.

Using these core values, Cluttons set themselves objectives, which then lead on to achieving the long-term aim of Cluttons. The current objectives for Cluttons are:

  • To give the best property advice they can to their clients.
  • To deliver excellent services to their clients.
  • To give their clients the best service they can in terms of quality and innovation.
  • To help and encourage their staff to give their best.

Locations

Cluttons’ locations can be split into UK offices and overseas offices. This is because they are a large international organisation that seeks to cover a large area as possible. Covering this large area will result in a large source of customers that will use Cluttons, which means that more of these customers be interested in moving to other countries, resulting in a large international market for Cluttons.

United Kingdom

In the UK Cluttons’ offices can be located in:

  • London. Cluttons have several offices in London, these are: Battersea, Belgravia, Chelsea, Clapham, Holland park, Hyde park, Marble Arch, South Kensington, St. Johns Wood, Tower bridge and Wapping. Their head office is located in Mayfair.
  • Northern England. Cluttons office in Northern England is located at Carisle.
  • South East England. Again, Cluttons have several offices in South East England, these can be located in: Worthing, Arundel, Brighton, Canterbury, Chichester, Goodwood, Maidstone, Romsey and Winchester.
  • South West England. All these office locations are in Bath, these are located at: Gay Street, Edgar Buildings and Corston.
  • Thames Valley. These offices are located in: Seacourt Tower – Oxford, Gloucester Street – Oxford.

Overseas

As well as offices in the United Kingdom, Cluttons have several overseas offices, these offices can be located in:

  • France. The Cluttons office in France is located in Cannes.
  • Italy. Italy has two offices located in Perugia, these are both associated offices.
  • Spain. These two locations in Spain are located in: Mallorca and in Marbella.
  • Bahrain. The two Cluttons offices located in Bahrain are in: Manama Centre and in Almoayyed tower.
  • Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has one office location located in Jeddah.
  • Oman, this office is located in Ruwi.
  • Dubai. Cluttons has one office in Dubai, this is located in Oud Metha.
  • Sharjah has one office.
  • South Africa. South Africa has several Cluttons’ offices located in: Western Seaboard, Head Office, City Bowl, Durbanville, Fisk Hoek, Hout Bay, Montagu, Muizenberg, Rondebosch, Somerset West, Stellenbosch, V&A Waterfront and the West Coast.

As we can see from the position of offices internationally, there are lots of offices located in South Africa and in the United Kingdom. Cluttons have recognised this and is looking to further expand more into Europe, opening more offices and establishing present offices. Cluttons have expanded into the Middle East so as to capture a market area there, this also gives Cluttons a chance to build any new properties they could sell over in the middle east, this would ensure a good supply of homes for the European buyers, looking to buy homes in the middle east.

Products and Services

Cluttons offer a range of product and services including Residential, Commercial, Farms and Estates, Project and Building Consultancy, telecommunications and Cluttons Private Finance.

Residential

Cluttons is one of the leading firms for residential services, they advise buyers and sellers of homes, houses and flats on their profitable sale, rental and letting management.

Clutton’s residential services include:

  • Development. These include the purchasing and disposal of land and buildings for residential development from small residential schemes for individual developers to substantial projects and mixed use schemes on behalf of the UK’s leading developers.
  • Dubai properties. This includes the development of communities. Communities include golf estate living, equestrian living, city living and waterfront living. Each community is master-planned and includes amenities needed to sustain each lifestyle - retail and entertainment facilities will feature in all communities with some developments to include schools, spas, boating, stabling and polo facilities.
  • Estate management. Cluttons is one of the UK’s leading firms of residential estate managers, responsible for the management of a significant number of central London estates on behalf of high profile estate clients, charities, property companies and private individuals. 
  • Mixed use. Cluttons has been advising clients on commercial and residential mixed use properties for over two hundred years. With pressure on land supply, and government focus on sustainable development and meeting the UK’s housing needs, mixed use is increasingly prevalent.
  • Building new homes. Cluttons' dedicated new homes team offer a comprehensive service to house builders and developers, advising on the potential of the development land for residential use, as well as the marketing of new homes.
  • Financing, this service can be further broken up into:
  • Residential mortgage borrowing for owner-occupiers
  • Second or multiple property financing
  • Investment property loans including buy-to-let
  • Loans for short leasehold properties
  • Lending on unusual property
  • Bridging finance
  • Borrowing in a company name or trust
  • Commercial and development finance
  • Offshore finance

  • Projecting and Building Consultency. Our project and building consultancy team is committed to maintaining and enhancing its respected position among the top 20 UK leading construction consultants, by continuing to meet clients' objectives through the provision of high quality, innovative and cost-effective services in a changing market.

Commercial

Clutton’s commercial services are a team of specialist, whom deal with all aspects of commercial property. The main clientele is wide ranging, including major corporate companies, property companies, private individuals, financial institutions, charities, major estates and the public sector. The services Cluttons’ provide are:

  • Advising on commercial property development
  • Commercial investment property
  • Commercial property finance
  • Commercial property for sale
  • Commercial property for rent
  • Commercial property management
  • Commercial property rental
  • Commercial property to lease
  • Commercial property valuation
  • Industrial units
  • Landlord services
  • Office space to lease
  • Warehouse for sale

Farms and Estate

Cluttons has specialist advisers in the management, sale and letting of farms and country estates and services include valuation, strategic business planning, finance, planning and development and related areas.

Clutton’s services in this sector include:

  • Farms, farm land, agricultural land and property, country estates, rural property portfolios, country houses, farmhouses for sales and valuation advice
  • Rural estate management, country estate management, farm management, rural asset management, rural portfolio management and advice
  • Rural property planning, development, conversion and renovation advice.  
  • Estate, farm and woodland management.
  • Valuation
  • Farm and country house sales
  • Strategic planning and development
  • Barn conversions and diversification appraisals
  • Environment schemes and grant aid
  • Infrastructure, utilities and compulsory purchase
  • Single farm payment assessment
  • Strategic reviews
  • Renewable energy opportunities

Telecommunications

Cluttons is one of the few property consultancies offering expertise in the field of telecommunications. Their telecommunications client base includes mobile operators, broadcasters and infrastructure providers. The key services Cluttons perform include:

  • Site identification, design and acquisition
  • Rating (including audit and payment service)
  • Lettings and disposals
  • Management
  • Rent review and lease renewals
  • Planning
  • Valuations
  • Telecom equipment – sales and leasing
  • Research

Customers.

Cluttons has 25 main customers; these can be split into two sections. These customers consist of large companies who want to invest a large proportion of money into real estate. These two sections are:

  • House buyers, these are the people who want to buy property abroad or in the UK.
  • Land owners, these are the people who want to sell their property to the house buyers, or to Cluttons to develop.

The Organisational Structure

Organisational structure is the pattern of relationships among workers and divisions in the organisation. The purpose of organisational structure is the division of work among members of the organisation, and the co-ordination of their activities so they are directed towards achieving goals and objectives of the organisation. Cluttons’ organisational structure is:

Senior Partner

Managing Partner

Main Board – containing, Senior Partner,

Managing Partner, Divisional Heads, Finance director,

Human resources director, 2 Equity Partners,

1 Non-Executive


Job Descriptions

A job description is an outline that includes title or role, function, term (length) of service, specific responsibilities, budget and resources available that explains the duties and responsibilities of the job position. Similar to this is a personal specification, in which the requirements a job holder needs to be able to perform the job satisfactorily are described. These are likely to include:

Education and qualifications
Training and experience
Personal attributes / qualities

This is different to a job description, which describes the job; a person specification describes the person needed to do the job. A person specification can, therefore, form  a picture of the most suitable person to fill the job.

Job description

Robert Seares

Robert Seares is a senior partner in Cluttons, he is also the Head of the Oxford offices and also the Commercial offices in Oxford. He reports to the Head of commercial services in Cluttons.

The Oxford Commercial Team reports to him and his main responsibilities are the management of:

  • Management of Oxford Offices
  • Oxford Commercial Team leadership
  • Rating appeals
  • Rent review and lease renewal
  • Commercial Management for specific clients
  • Heading local residential block management
    Liaising with clients
  • Business generation

The main roles and responsibilities are:

  • Motivating teams and encouraging performance
  • Managing business targets to achieve objectives
  • Undertaking finance and business planning to maximise opportunities
  • Focus on client requirements to provide a range of services required.
  • Building business by networking and marketing
  • Providing leadership and personnel guidance to all sections in Oxford
  • Undertaking more complicated work in rating, landlord and tenant management and commercial property consultancy.

Nicola Mirtle

Nicola Mirtle is a HR/H&S Administrator in Cluttons. She reports the the HR Director and HR Team/H&S Team, and isn’t reported to by anyone. Her main responsibilities are:

Being responsible for providing HR administrative support across the six UK divisions of Cluttons LLP under the guidance of the HR Manager. Working within an HR Team of eight. Undertaking the following:

  • Providing full HR administrative support to the business that complies with company procedures, best practice and legislative requirements.
  • Supporting HR Business Partners and Advisors in delivering a quality service to internal customers
  • Preparing contractual documentation
  • Ensuring processing of HR data as appropriate to support operational needs.
  • Contributing towards the continuous improvement of HR processes, ensuring that the company has appropriate and effective systems to meet its business objectives.
  • Undertaking HR project-work as required
  • Supporting more senior HR staff in operational issues (e.g. occasional exit interviewing, grievance hearings, minute-taking, etc).
  • Escalating issues to the HR Manager as necessary
  • Secretarial responsibilities – ordering stationary, booking meetings and travel for the team, processing invoices.

The health and safety side of Nicola’s job involves:

  • Secretarial support – process invoices, copy H&S literature, book meetings, travel and stationary for the team, filing and responsibility for the obtaining gas/electric readings from all offices.
  • Assist with the SafeContractor scheme – process requests from managers, adding and amending contractor details on a database, contact safe contractor when needed, initial point of contact for employees who have queries.
  • Note and file accident reports.
  • Running reports, recording data from completed employee forms.
  • Holiday co-ordinator responsibilities – Not and record absences from team, confirm and check regularly employees reaming holiday entitlement.

Sonja Porter

Sonja Porter is a Senior Surveyor in Cluttons. She reports the partner, in this case Robert Sears, and she is reported to by the Graduate Surveyors. Her main responsibilities are:

  • She is the surveyor responsible for the on-going management of rural property portfolios owned for institutional and private clients throughout the South East of England.
  • Advising landowners and farmers on the management of their rural property.
  • Managing let and in-hand cottages, offices, workshops, sporting rights etc. Within the portfolios. Carry out rent reviews, and of tenancy negotiations and re-lettings.
  • Collection of rent and organisation of day to day repairs. Budgeting and financial management for the property.
  • Management of diversification projects including applying for grant aid.
  • Some involvement with the farm management including conservation schemes, conversion to organic status, government support etc.
  • Analysing development projects, preparing feasibility reports and instructing other professionals to oversee construction works.
  • Preparation of planning applications.

 A day in the life of a supervisor

This is a typical day that a supervisor like Robert Seares may encounter. I have taken into account his job description in writing this.

Person Specifications

Person Specifications

The person specification is an extension of the job description. It is a profile of the type of person needed to do a job and is produced along with a job description following a job analysis. Elements of a person specification include:

  • Experience
  • Qualifications
  • Specialised aptitudes
  • Interests
  • Personality

Person Specification

Robert Seares

Job Title: Partner: Head of Oxford Offices; Head of Oxford Commercial

Department: Commercial

E = Essential, D = Desirable for applicants to meet the relevant standard.

Nicola Mirtle

Job Title: HR/H & S Administrator

Department: Human resources

E = Essential, D = Desirable for applicants to meet the relevant standard.

Sonja Porter

Job Title: Senior Surveyor

Department: Rural

E = Essential, D = Desirable for applicants to meet the relevant standard.

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Personal specifications in more detail

Robert Seares

Job Title: Partner: Head of Oxford Offices; Head of Oxford Commercial

Department: Commercial

Detailed description of the skills and qualities.

Qualifications:

  1. Graduate level education or equivalent experience in Urbanland Economics.

  1. Fellow Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

To show experience in the field of Surveying, and shows that Robert Seares has good contacts in the field.

  1. RICS Special Diploma in Rating

  1. Member of the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation.

This shows that Robert Seares has relevant knowledge ...

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